Businesses or other entities having a need for volume printing typically use a production printer capable of printing hundreds of pages per minute. A web of print media, such as paper, is stored the form of a large roll and unraveled as a continuous sheet. During printing, the web is quickly passed underneath printheads which discharge small drops of ink at particular intervals to form pixel images on the web. The web may then be dried and cut to produce a printed product.
Since production printers print high quality images at high speed, it is important that the drying process of the web is quick but effective. One such drying mechanism is a hollow metal drum heated with a radiant energy source inside the drum, such as a lamp. The lamp heats the surface of the drum to a desired temperature and the web contacts the heated surface as it travels in a rotating direction of the drum. The heated surface of the drum dries the ink on the web at a controlled temperature. However, since the lamps are located at fixed position within the drum, the drying process yields efficiency losses due to the fixed distance from the lamp to the surface of the drum. Moreover, it is difficult to access fixed lamps within the drum for service and maintenance operations, particularly when the lamps are not located near a central core of the drum.